


The Paris Ladies' Two-Person Society for Writing Feedback and Miscellaneous Caffeine

by brawltogethernow



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Characters Writing Fanfiction, Gen, In-Universe RPF, Metafiction, OT3 (discussed), Sex Pollen (discussed), Stylistic Suck, bad porn and infamous fic tropes, does Tarvek Sturmvoraus is gay?, that writer feel, well really it's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 18:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13440708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawltogethernow/pseuds/brawltogethernow
Summary: Gilgamesh bludgeoned Agatha with his meat hammer.“No,” said Thérèse.“It’s good!” insisted Vivian. “Vivid!”





	The Paris Ladies' Two-Person Society for Writing Feedback and Miscellaneous Caffeine

**Author's Note:**

> Probably inspired by that one post about [volumes upon volumes of porn](http://brawltogethernow.tumblr.com/post/169967798846/iztarshi-protector-of-the-small-it-is-canon).

_Gilgamesh bludgeoned Agatha with his meat hammer._

“No,” said Thérèse.

“It’s good!” insisted Vivian. “Vivid!”

“It is neither of those things,” said Thérèse. “Change it.”

“Shan’t.”

“Of course you shan’t. Honestly, what do you even want me here for? Go on to the next bit then.”

“I need an audience to test!” said Vivian. “Writing is like a science, which needs testing! More importantly, my writing is an art! It needs to breathe! To _live!_ ”

“You’re using me to get used to shouting down your detractors?”

“Any _genius_ has detractors,” sniffed Vivian defensively. “My true audience _understands_. Anyway, the next bit goes, _‘Their heaving bodies were intertwined, locked in a succulent embrace. Gilgamesh gazed into Agatha’s citrine orbs, and fancied he could see the spin of the clockwork that governed the universe....’_ ”

 

Thérèse had been working on her first thesis at the same time that Vivian had been completing her first novel under a deadline. They had spent a lot of overlapping time over a short period in the same room of the Grand Library and bonded over existing in similar frenzied whirlwinds of sleeplessness, overcaffeination, and misfiring neural function.

Out of the habits ingrained in this high-stress period of their lives, they continued occasionally working together and regularly consulted each other for feedback, even though Vivian wrote steamy penny sparklies and Thérèse was studying archetypes in Germano-Celtic fairy tales. Today Thérèse had brought along her younger cousin, Jeannette, who had been visiting the university and was on her way out of town that evening. She was perched on a steamer trunk she and Thérèse had hauled into the café and dropped beside their table, and seemed content to sit there and listen in as she picked at some sort of mathematical problem that was scribbled out on a sheaf of papers she had spread across her lap and the rest of the trunk. Vivian had offered to go fetch her a real chair and she had declined.

Their stock of tea and sandwiches steadily depleted as they churned through Vivian’s rough draft, burning calories through the vitriolic arguments that occurred as Thérèse tried to argue her friend down to using fewer metaphors. Eventually they would probably run out of tea and move onto gin. They usually did.

Vivian brushed crumbs off her longhand draft impatiently. “So she has the two main suitors, and I’m trying to compare them through symbolism, you know? I want it to seem at the end like they both had an even chance, you know?”

“I still think Prince Sturmvoraus is gay,” muttered Thérèse. She was very stubborn about this. She tried to stifle her opinions, but it always came up eventually.

“Being taken away by a prince is _dreamy_ ,” Jeannette piped up unexpectedly. Her eyes were still on her papers. “There’s nothing romantic about a _baron._ ”

“That’s why he’s the _young_ baron,” said Vivian waspishly. “He’s still basically the heir, you know? Old Klaus is out there. Somewhere. And that makes it even more romantic! Gilgamesh and Agatha are held apart by circumstance, but drawn together by their feelings! Like _magnets._ ” She lunged for her pen to jot this simile down. “‘Magnets of love’?” she muttered. “No, that’s stupid. _The magnetic forces of true romance._ Hm.”

“I still think he’s sexier in those before-era stories,” said Jeannette, idly scribbling out half a page of equations. “You should write one of those.”

Vivian glared at her. “I am _writing — **this**_.”

Jeannette held up her hands defensively.

Vivian drew the loose papers of her rough draft close and snarled over it, as if daring anyone to try to deter her.

“I just meant next?” muttered Jeannette.

Thérèse put a hand on her arm. “Let it go, Jean.”

Vivian had patches of color appearing high on her cheekbones, adjacent to where she dotted her blush. “It’s not ideal for me either, you know!” she said. “Sometimes you have to work around what you’ve got! You can’t abandon a true romance just because the going gets tough! You can’t just walk away from a relationship on a whim! ...Even if it’s one you’re not in!”

Thérèse tapped a biscotti against her plate, looking pensive.

“And they’re meant to be together!” continued Vivian. “They were made for each other, their personalities are perfect foils and —”

“Tarvek Sturmvoraus is in love with Gilgamesh Wulfenbach!” Thérèse finally burst out. “Their history goes too far back for anyone else to match!”

“You can’t just _pair up_ the Lady Heterodyne’s love interests,” said Vivian, scandalized.

“Can, will, do,” said Thérèse brusquely. She exhaled once and then picked up her coffee calmly. Thérèse never stayed fired up for long, in contrast to Vivian.

“Wait, you can do that?” said Jeannette, sounding confused.

“Ladies, ladies, ladies!” said Zita, their waitress and a regular dispenser of unsolicited advice, sweeping up to their table to deposit their third order of tea cakes, which they had technically not asked for but which was as good as a given. “Forgive me, but I overheard. Allow me to _educate_ you: _Ménage a trois._ ”

“That’s not a stand-in for properly assessing relationships, it’s an _additional option,_ ” muttered Vivian as Zita swept away again, sounding like this was not the first time she’d put forward this point and been ignored.

“You can _do_ that?” repeated Jeannette.

“Anyway...” muttered Vivian, picking up a tea cake and shredding it with her fingertips instead of moving to eat it. “I’m already...I’ve already sort of got an idea I want to work on after I’m done with this one.”

“Well, go on then,” said Thérèse, waving one hand at the wrist and using the other to dunk a cake in her coffee. “How does this one go.”

“Well,” began Vivian, her aura of insecurity vanishing immediately, “— this is after about twenty-thousand words of buildup, you understand — but the cast is all walking through the Heterodynes’ castle, and they pass through this hallway next to the Old Heterodynes’ greenhouse, and it’s been broken open, right? And there’s this Old Heterodyne plant cultivar, and it releases this pollen into the air that...”

“...That what,” said Thérèse.

Vivian covered her grin with her hand.

“What does the pollen do, Vivian,” asked Thérèse flatly.

Vivian giggled, blushing.

“What?” asked Jeannette, looking up again. “What does the pollen do? I don’t get it.”

Vivian laughed harder into her hands, utterly gleeful.


End file.
